The Spacer's Companion

By Michael A. Hein

Explore the Angels' Reach in this single-author anthology of short fiction set in the optimistic 30th century future!

 

Seventeen original short stories of interstellar adventure, including:

• An Unwanted Diadem: Risko Brett, an antiques dealer on the world of Maribel, acquires some sor

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Angels Reach
• Release date: Nov 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218303303

Book preview

Introduction

The Angels’ Reach is a big place, and no author could ever tell even a fraction of the stories within it that deserve to be told. Despite this, I aim to tell as many of them as possible, at least in part, and to tell some of the most important in full.

The stories in this collection are some of my favorite short pieces set in the Reach. They range from my earliest forays into writing about the Reach to some of the more recent short pieces I have written. I have enjoyed creating and refining these tales, and I hope you as the reader enjoy them, too.

You will find little of our own world in the Angels’ Reach. The people of the thirtieth century think of our twenty-first little, if at all, just as we in the twenty-first rarely look back on the culture of the twelfth century. The problems and struggles of our time have been forgotten. New problems, new struggles, new crises have succeeded them through forty-five generations, and our world impinges on theirs only in dreamily half-forgotten names and events.

In addition to the short stories in this volume, I have attached two appendices; the first establishes the locations of various star systems relative to each other and to the structure of the galaxy, and the second orients the reader in time and provides a summary of nearly a thousand years of history. Reading them is not required to understand any of the stories, nor is reading any of the stories required to understand any other.

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An Unwanted Diadem

Welcome to Brett’s Antiques. Though he had been just about to turn off the sign, lock the doors, and go home for the day, Risko Brett turned on the charm the moment the door chime sounded. How can I help you, sir?

Yes, hello. The newcomer, a young man whose street clothes failed to disguise a Navy spacer on shore leave, glanced around at the half-lit storefront. One hand clutched a wrapped bundle to his chest while the other raked his close-cropped hair. Are you closing?

Risko shrugged, reaching under the counter to turn the display-case lights back on. I was about to. It had been a quiet day. The young spacer was only his fifth patron in ten hours. Only two had bought anything, and he could tell immediately that this junior enlisted spacer would not be making any significant purchases either. Take your time, look around.

Actually... The young man stepped further into the shop. I was wondering if you buy.

Risko nodded. He was in theory happy to buy items from walk-ins, but he doubted the young man could possibly have anything worthwhile. Depends on what you want to sell.

Hesitantly, the spacer approached the counter and set his paper-wrapped bundle down, then stepped back as if worried it might explode.

Risko eyed his customer for a few seconds before touching the bundle, but he didn’t see any indication that he was being subjected to some sort of practical joke. Gingerly, he unfolded the crumpled paper, taking it slow even after he caught his first glimpse of silvery metal within. Can you tell me what it is?

Well... The young man looked over his shoulder, then stepped in close and lowered his voice. My cousin dug it up on Adimari Valis. He sent it to me before Nate took the place.

Wincing, Risko picked up the item. He didn’t like dealing in Xenarch artifacts, real or fake. They tended to attract the wrong kind of customers. This was, he judged, almost certainly a fake. It didn’t look ancient - its bright, untarnished metal looked new, without any sign of dirt packed into its many intricate corners. It was clearly shaped like it was meant for a human to wear. It’s a crown.

Nodding eagerly, the young man reached out to point at a line of symbols just below the peaked crest at the front. That’s Xenarch script, there.

Risko scrutinized the text. It certainly looked alien, but that didn’t mean much of anything. He couldn’t read Xenarch; nobody could. It could be. I’d need to have an expert look at it before I could quote a price, of course.

I, uh... The young man clearly didn’t want Risko to know what he’d already guessed. He’d not given his name; he wanted the transaction to be anonymous. The antiques dealer wondered if the story about a cousin on Adimari Valis was a sham – perhaps the young spacer had stolen the crown or won it in one of Maribel’s disreputable gambling-houses, his presence in which would violate Navy regulations. I was hoping to sell it today.

Sorry, kid. Risko pushed the crown back across the counter. I can’t buy what I can’t verify. It might be what you say it is, but it looks like a-

A damned holo-drama prop, I know. The youth ran his fingers over the fluted decorations on the face of the artifact. I thought so too...

Risko waited expectantly, but no words followed. He turned away to begin shutting down the shop, supposing that the conversation was over. When he had done so, he turned back to see that his customer had not moved. Come back tomorrow around mid-day and we’ll have a xenoarchaeologist friend of mine look at it.

Roused from staring down at the gleaming metal bauble in his hands, the young man turned and allowed himself to be led from the store but lingered nearby as Risko turned off his shop’s holo-signs and locked the door.

Hey, Mr. Brett, one more thing.

Risko turned around in time to see a silvery-white object flashing through the air in his direction. Reflexively, he caught the crown which had been thrown. By the time he looked up to its owner, all he saw of the spacer was his heels disappearing around the corner at the end of the block.

Chuckling, Risko tucked the flashy item under his arm inside his jacket and walked home to his flat a few blocks away. This was not the first time someone had tried to pass off junk as a priceless artifact in his shop; when verification came up, they tended to lose their nerve and run for it. He had to admit that the crown was pretty – even if it was worthless enough to be discarded as soon as its shifty owner couldn’t get any credits for it, he considered it fair compensation for his wasted time.

Setting the item on a shelf just inside his front door, Risko busied himself with a meal and his favorite holo-drama, then turned on a vidcast news service. The war and its many minor disasters dominated the news yet again, and he watched with interest but no real concern. Business would continue as usual. He tried not to worry about things beyond his control, and anyway, the conflict did bring plenty of new customers to his store, even if some of them were disreputable.

When he retired for the night, Risko was still chuckling at the hapless spacer’s panicked flight and the glittering souvenir he’d collected. In the morning, however, he woke to find his head feeling unusually heavy. Reaching up to rub his forehead, he found cool, fluted metal before his hand touched skin.

Suddenly wide awake, Risko sat bolt upright in bed and pulled the offending object off. It was the crown from the previous day, looking if anything more lustrous in the morning light than it had the previous afternoon. He’d never sleepwalked before and didn’t recall any dreams indicative of moving about the apartment. Nothing else around the place looked to have been moved, and not even his slippers had been disturbed from their usual place.

Uneasily, Risko hurried through his morning routine, placing the crown back on the shelf as he left for the day. He opened his shop a few minutes early and sat behind the counter sipping real coffee from specialty café down the street. The warm, familiar flavor soothed his rattled nerves, and he had forgotten the incident long before the first customer of the day wandered in.

Good morning, Mr. Brett. Cheery old Mrs. Boelens, a regular browser and occasional buyer, waved to him with a good-natured wink. Aren’t you looking fancy today.

Risko looked down at his clothes and realized that his smart-clothes were configured in a far more formal cut than he usually preferred. He didn’t remember changing the settings, but it probably wouldn’t hurt business. I suppose I am. He shrugged. Looking for anything specific this morning?

Just browsing, dear. The woman ambled between the display cases. Did that collection of Heracles pearls you mentioned finally come in?

Yes, they have! Risko brightened – Mrs. Boelens had bought exotic pearls before and would likely purchase something from the lot he’d just received. I haven’t had a chance to put them in the displays. Would you like me to bring them out?

She nodded eagerly, so Risko hurried into the back room to find a display tray and lay the various brooches, necklaces, and bracelets out.

When he returned, Mrs. Boelens quickly set to picking each item up and turning it over in her hands. It took her only a few minutes to select one necklace and set it aside. The pearls were only a modest sale, but it was a good way to start the day.

As Risko put the transaction through on the shop’s computer terminal, she kept glancing up at him, smiling slyly, as if sharing a private joke – a joke Risko didn’t get.

Mrs. Boelens, may I ask what you think is so funny? As he asked, Risko placed the necklace in a padded package and handed it to her, the credit transaction complete.

Oh, nothing dear. She tapped her temple with one finger. I just like to see that you know how to have a little bit of fun once in a while, that’s all. Sitting by yourself in this little shop every day… I know it gets dull.

Fun? Risko frowned as she turned away and left the shop. He prided himself on his professionalism and patience – he wasn’t in business for fun. Remembering her gesture, he reached up to his temple, only to find smooth, worked metal there.

Yanking the crown off his head in alarm, Risko mentally backtracked through his morning. He’d left the crown on the shelf in his flat, and he hadn’t had it on when he’d opened the shop – his reflection in the window-glass when he turned on the sign would have given it away. He hadn’t had time to go home to get it – nor any desire to do so. Shuddering, he darted into the back room and tossed the crown into an empty inventory bin, wondering if he was losing his mind.

When a small group of customers wandered in almost an hour later, Risko had calmed down once more, though he had begun habitually running his hand through his hair to verify that he had not been mysteriously crowned once again. The four young people were dressed well, but their attitude told him right away that they weren’t going to buy anything. Still, they asked questions about several items, and Risko was only too happy to answer them, if only to take his mind off other things.

Just as the group was leaving, Risko had an idea. Retrieving the crown from the stockroom, he set it in an empty space in one of the display cabinets. He gave the digital label a low price – lower than anything else on display - and the non-specific text REPLICA CROWN. If someone bought the item, it would probably become their problem, and he’d still make a profit off the previous day’s misadventure.

Indeed, the next customer to come in, a middle-aged man with the erect bearing of a mid-level Navy officer, pointed to the crown. Is this price right? Seems a bit low.

Risko made a show of coming out from behind the counter to scrutinize the label. That’s my asking price. It’s a real eye-catcher, but there’s not much to say about it.

To Risko’s dismay, the officer shrugged and moved on to the next display. When he tried to haggle down the price of a hundred-year-old model of a Terran Sphere warship, Risko tried to throw in the crown in order to strike a deal close to his asking price. Once again, the man lost interest, and Risko lost the sale.

At the end of the day, having sold nothing since the pearl necklace that morning, Risko closed up Brett’s Antiques and went home, checking his head and person several times on the way to make sure the crown had stayed in the shop. Assured that he’d arrived home without it, he tried to relax with holo-dramas and news, only partially succeeding.

The next morning, Risko woke sprawled on the recliner in front of the idle holo-display in his flat, having not even changed out of the clothes which he had worn to work the previous day. Groggily, he stood and stretched, wondering if the whole episode with the counterfeit Xenarch crown had been only a strange dream.

A glance in the mirror disabused him of that notion quickly. On his head, gleaming still as if it was new, the silver-white crown sat comfortably over his temples, so familiar there that he did not feel its weight.

Tearing it off his head, Risko dashed out onto the street and looked around. He needed to be rid of the crown, but who would take it?

He spotted his mark immediately. The shabbily dressed girl was likely no older than twelve, and she carried a shoulder-bag covered in glittering material like that of a holo-drama ball gown. Risko crossed the street to head her off, then held the crown out at arm’s length, broadening his salesman’s smile. Hey kiddo. Want a crown? I was going to throw it out, but it matches your backpack, see?

The girl frowned in confusion, then nodded brightly and took the bauble. Turning it over in her hands, she smiled, nodded in thanks, then dropped it onto her head and continued on her way.

Risko waited until the girl had gone around a corner, then slumped against a wall and took a long, deep breath. Shame for what he had just done rolled over him only slowly, and it could not quite chase away the sense of relief. The crown wasn’t his problem anymore. It was over.

By the time he unlocked his shop and spotted the empty spot labeled REPLICA CROWN in the display case, Risko had almost forgotten why it was there. The whole episode seemed so unbelievable now. Even thinking about it hurt like probing a cracked tooth with his tongue. Shaking his head, Risko removed the now-pointless label, but not before checking his reflection in the window, just in case.

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Finnegan’s Heist

The drinks came, and Euphrasie Nesmith stared at hers a long time before picking it up and sipping it thoughtfully. The young man across the table, meanwhile, gulped his own small glass of liqueur as soon as it was set in front of him, then slammed the empty container back down and punched an order for a second into the smart table's menu.

As he paused indecisively over the confirmation button, Euphrasie snuck a look at him. His loose, sandy hair hung in front of eyes whose red rims flicked to every source of motion in the club's poorly-lit interior. His formerly easy smile had evolved into a perpetually strained grimace. Finnegan Brock had never been a large person, but his hunched, beaten posture made him look even smaller.

Still insistently jabbing the tabletop display, Finn looked up to Euphrasie. You know, Frazi. He said, reverting reflexively to the diminutive name he'd coined for her when they were both children. The worst thing you ever did to me was save my life.

Euphrasie shook her head. Their meeting now was purely by chance; they had fallen out of contact ten years before, when they were both barely teenagers. Now, she was heading out to the Coreward Frontier with a Survey Auxiliary commission, and he was... Well, she preferred not to think about what Finn did for a living since he’d disappeared.

Was I supposed to let you go to the atomizer, Finn? She shook her head. You didn't kill that man. After all these years, she didn't know what she had expected. She'd waited for him, hoping that someday, he might be able to clear his name and return, but he never sent even a cryptic text-only message that told her he was all right. She'd given up and signed up for Survey on her twenty-first birthday, the way they'd always dreamed of doing together, and now, with her freshly printed commission in hand, she was leaving Herakles space forever. It was just like Finn to bump into her as she was preparing to board her brand new ship, the Idril Yara, and take it on its first interstellar voyage.

I could have fought the charge, Frazi. Cleared my name. He frowned. Instead, I was scared, and I ran. You helped me keep running, and by running I condemned myself. But I suppose that’s how it had to be, eh? The second drink arrived, and Finn glanced hurriedly to both sides. Can't stay long. He stared long and